MANY companies in Wales will use both .cymru and .wales internet domain names if they become available.

Clogau Gold managing director Ben Roberts said having both addresses could help with marketing.

A straw poll was carried out by Wales Business Insider, which revealed owner/managers were keen on having Welsh and English web addresses.

Ben said: “Being a Welsh business with a strong Welsh following I can see how it would be beneficial to us. When marketing to our Welsh customers I can see how they might appreciate this, we’re a patriotic bunch after all.”

William McNamara, chief executive of Bluestone National Park Resort, said the Pembrokeshire business would consider using both: “This would provide a broader opportunity to promote Bluestone’s Welsh identity and location to as wide an audience as possible,” he added.

“If they did it would be highly likely it would be misspelled. The commercial line of least resistance is to maintain .com status, but, we’re nothing without an identity and .wales is a good first step.”

Afonwen Laundry, based in Pwllheli, would opt just for .cymru status, according to managing director Mark Woolfenden. He said: “We would use .cymru for our Welsh language website, but I doubt it would fundamentally alter anything else in how we run our business.”

Nominet, the internet registry which looks after the .uk internet name space, recently applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for two top level domains, .cymru and .wales.

It said the move would deliver domains that are “inclusive of the whole community, bringing economic and cultural benefits and encouraging greater use of the Welsh language online”.